When dave gets home from work today (already been 36 hours) he will be done with his second year of residency. Another year down and still a million to go (or so it seems). Actually, we have 5 more years of residency and then probably a year of fellowship after that.
The next 6 months dave will work at the Children's hospital and have home call EVERYDAY! Technically he's supposed to have 1 day off a week with no pager (24 hours) so he gets from noon friday-noon saturday off. pretty sneaky way of not giving him a day off, eh? I would highly doubt that he'll walk out of the hospital at noon ..we'll see. If he does actually get out of there on time it could be a fun day.
Home call stinks 'cuz you always have to have phone and pager in hand, can't be away from a computer, or leave the 20 minute radius of the hospital. We will have to take 2 cars everywhere we go in case dave gets called in.
on the plus side, children's will be a new and interesting experience for dave, it is 10 mins closer than downtown UCSD, a new color of scrubs -- light blue I think.
It'll be interesting.
I'm pretty sure that after these 6 months we really will have the worst behind us.
here are some interesting thoughts to put the length of our residency in perspective. #1. My little bro will start law school this fall and will have a real job 2-3 years before we do. He is 5 years younger than us. #2. A 2009 graduate of high school can start college this fall and get a 4 year nursing degree. Then get a job at Dave's hospital and 4 years from now as a first year nurse make more than dave will be making in his chief year. That person would be 12 years younger than us. #3. When dave finishes residency we will have been married 15 years. #4. Alexey will be done with Kindergarten, Calvin done with 5th grade. -- and then the fellowship would/will be one more year after that. Sometimes I don't think I can make it. But I will.
7 comments:
Denise, you're my hero. Six months of call??? And here I thought a month straight was bad. And six more years...The "putting it in perspective" notes are seriously crazy. I'm learning to ignore obnoxious comments but still sometimes I wish people understood what it takes to become a (great) doctor...and to be a supportive spouse, with a family. It's SO hard; there is no other profession like it. You rock.
YOU CAN DO IT!!! The reward in the end WILL BE SO WORTH IT!!! Day by day, all the hard work, L-O-N-G days and effort will be pay off!! :)
that is a long time. The good part is that we have you guys around for a while!
Wow, I can't believe he has to be on home call so much. That really stinks. Residency sure tests your patience and endurance sometimes.
Interesting on the nursing degree... it really is too bad residents get paid so poorly. It is sad that they don't really value how hard they work, but they expect it instead.
At least another year is done. Wahoo!
The sacrifices that any person makes to become a doctor astonish me. The additional hardship excellent doctors and specialists (like Dave) endure (and their families) are stunning. What's more is that at the end of it, you'll be 35/36 and still be in the red. Sure you might have your debt paid off in your 40's and then make some money, but Dave will still have given almost 20 years of his life to training with no compensation. The meager salary for residents can't offset the debt incurred for medical school. Dave really is a superhero, and you're lucky to have each other.
I will refrain from making any inflammatory political remarks about certain proposals for nationalizing Dave, so I'll just say you guys are great.
Home call sounds like house arrest. Instead of an electronic monitoring anklet Dave has the pager. Felons probably make more money though.
Good luck! You can do it.
Yeah--pretty much it sucks. But what can you do?! I'm trying to just realize that this is my life and so I better make the best of it now instead of wishing it away (which I tend to do a bit). Eric often reminds me he will probably always have call and doctor's don't have "normal" 9 hour work days even when they're attendings. But I know that's nothing compared to Dave's residency. And we have a cardiothoracic surgeon in our ward. That one really bites.
Hope you're hanging in there. I found some fun resident wife blogs that keep me sane.
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